


Winter, Winter, Fool Me

by james



Series: Seasons Change [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Grumpy!Geralt, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24118360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: Geralt just wants to spend a quiet winter at Kaer Morhen.  Too bad his brothers have found out about the bard who's been following him around, writing songs.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Seasons Change [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767004
Comments: 23
Kudos: 535





	Winter, Winter, Fool Me

It was the third winter _afterwards,_ Geralt went back to spend the long cold months at Kaer Morhen. It had been a rough autumn and he needed time to fix nearly all of his gear – he'd had to completely replace some of his armor, spending more coin than he'd really wanted to throw away. But needs must, so he'd spent it and was looking forward to resting, recouping, and maybe winning back some coin or favors from his brothers if they showed.

There were always chores to be done over the winter, but all of the Witchers were pretty fair about offering up their own chores in games of Gwent and then actually following through if they lost. Some tasks couldn't be gambled away, needing all hands available to complete before the storms hit. But one could play his way out of dishes and the stables on a regular basis if he played his cards well enough – if they gave Lambert all the ale he wanted while they played they could generally all take the day off while he bitched and carried on and completed three days' worth of tasks while the rest of them watched.

Vesemir cut him no slack, pointing out that no one forced Lambert to drink so much he could no longer cheat well enough to win.

Last winter no one had spoken of the new and confounding development in Geralt's life, but this year he suspected it would be different. He'd walked into towns without the bard at his heels and he'd heard _that song._ Sung by whomever was entertaining the crowd and on three separate occasions he'd been given coin without asking, because of it. Thrown on his table like he were a bard himself or a dancing girl – and comments he'd overheard told him his brothers might well have encountered the same treatment.

Leading Roach, he trudged up the path towards the keep gate, weather still warm and dry enough that it might be two or three weeks before anyone else showed. He could hide away in the library and the armory, hopefully, before having to deal with anyone but Vesemir.

Geralt sighed as they stepped through the gate, his shoulders dropping as tension he never seemed to notice until it was gone, fled. He couldn't rightly claim that home was sweet, but it was familiar, and there would be no one here who didn't know and feel exactly the same as he.

Home, bittersweet home, perhaps, but he was glad to be there all the same.

~ ~ ~

It was only a week later before Eskel and Lambert arrived, nearly on one another's footsteps. Geralt wasn't entirely sorry to see his quiet solitude disturbed – Eskel had brought up bottles of wine and Lambert had two bags of barley for malting. They'd also brought down a boar that morning – Geralt pitched in to get it butchered and they all looked forward to roast pig for the next several days.

It was enough to make him drop his guard and relax. So of course the third night in they were sitting around the fire after a long day of what Geralt swore was busy work crafted by Vesemir to keep them out of his hair – Eskel passed over the last bottle of wine he'd brought in, and as Geralt drank he asked, “So you never mentioned your boy last year.”

Geralt choked on his wine, then swallowed, then glared. “He's not my boy.” 

Lambert grinned in sheer delight, exchanging a glance with Eskel which told Geralt exactly what the two had discussed on their trip in.

“I heard such wonderful stories,” Lambert said, sounding far too delighted. “You never said you had a new friend, Geralt. But from what I hear it's been three years.”

Geralt scowled at him as well, and held onto the bottle of wine. As if he would share the last of it with either of them, now.

“I got paid twice, last spring, for killing a bloedzuiger,” Eskel said, reaching into a bag at his feet and pulling out another bottle. From the smell of it, it was rotgut, and Geralt would have gladly traded, except for the principle of the thing. Eskel sounded duly and sincerely impressed, which was nice, actually, but Geralt wasn't about to make this easy on them. Not when they looked like they were going to happily talk about this _all winter._

Lambert nodded, and gestured with a bottle of his own, from the smell it was probably watered down and Geralt reminded himself to say no to Gwent, later. “I walked into a tavern one time, and the girl was singing it, and sure as shit they gave me coin! Got my meal for free, and I hadn't even killed anything in a week!”

Geralt wanted to be appreciative. He wanted to say he'd tell Jaskier about it, give him their thanks. And to be honest he probably would if he saw Jaskier again, but he wasn't telling his brothers that, considering the eager gleam in both their eyes.

“So why didn't you tell us, hm?” Eskel asked. “I heard he was sweet on the eyes as well on the ears.” He winked, leering.

Geralt rolled his eyes. “He's a _child_ ,” he snapped. “When he first approached me he was barely out of short pants. Just out of his university and wanted to 'see the world' and have an adventure.” Geralt didn't hide the bitterness he felt, tired all over again at the memory of Jaskier, following him despite everything Geralt had said and done, bright and cheerful and _loud_ as if everything were a party thrown just for him. So fucking young and unaware of everything the Continent really had to offer.

He blinked and saw Eskel and Lambert peering at him, closely. He growled again, because what the fuck.

“He wanted to get a story and turn it into a song so he could be rich and famous,” Geralt continued, even as a voice in the back of his head twigged at him. Yes, Jaskier had said just that – at first. But the song he'd crafted had been to benefit _him,_ and the other Witchers besides. From the sound of it, it had done exactly that. And he _was_ grateful, and Lambert had said as much as well, and Jaskier deserved to know his song had succeeded.

Except, somehow Geralt had a feeling that if he even thought something complimentary about the bard, from however many miles away he was, Jaskier would somehow know, and preen insufferably.

“Well, I for one appreciate his rich and famous song,” Lambert said, holding up his bottle in toast. “May he forever make _me_ rich and slightly less hated by the stupid human populace.”

Eskel grinned and clinked his bottle with him, then turned to offer to Geralt. Geralt ignored them, glaring at them because he would prefer to talk about literally anything else.

“And you travelled with him again this summer?” Eskel asked, sounding like he somehow already knew everything.

There was nothing to know, Geralt wanted to tell them, except he knew saying that would make them think there _was_ something and they would hound him over it all winter. Jaskier was still so fucking young, too young to know what he was getting into, and it didn't matter if he had a pretty face and a nice voice, and it didn't matter in the slightest if Geralt knew he'd end up seeking out the bard out spring, if only to tell him what Lambert had said.

His silence wouldn't stop his brothers from harassing him; there wasn't much entertainment in the Kaer over a long winter, between Gwent and chores and tumbling one another into bed.

But he hadn't touched the bard – couldn't say he hadn't known it was on offer, Jaskier was many things but subtle wasn't one of them. But Geralt knew what would have happened if he had. It was one thing to sleep with a whore who only wanted your coin, or a brother in arms who only wanted comfort and release. Young men – and women – like Jaskier tended to read too much into things and it wasn't worth what would come afterwards, if Geralt took him to bed.

 _Toss a Coin to Your Witcher_ was fine, as far as that went. What he didn't need was a love-struck young man following him around making eyes at him and writing songs about it. He'd written an over-wrought and wholly untrue ballad about him without any encouragement from Geralt; he hated to think what Jaskier would have written _with_ it.

He glanced at Eskel and Lambert and saw that they were clearly willing to believe he'd slept with Jaskier, or wanted to, or something.

It wasn't too late to leave; he could get down the trail before the first snows fell.

“He found me again last spring, and followed,” Geralt said, because that had been exactly how it happened and maybe if he told them, they'd stop pestering him. He hadn't encouraged Jaskier in the slightest, had suggested several roads he could take _away_ from Geralt's path. The boy was either very stubborn or very stupid or both, because he'd just smiled every time, sworn to accompany Geralt on his journey, and talked incessantly all day and had still been able to sing all evening and into the night.

Geralt felt tired just remembering it.

He could barely recall being that age, himself. They would have been in the deepest part of training, then, if he'd had that kind of energy and passion it was lost in a haze of exhaustion and aching muscles.

He took the last drink of wine, tipping his head back and saw Lambert waggling his eyebrows. “Aw, and it sounds like you miss him,” Lambert said, completely and no doubt willfully misinterpreting Geralt's sigh.

“If you're so interested, why don't you let him follow _you_ around?” Geralt demanded. “If you want to bed him I doubt he'd say no. Make him sing all you like.”

“Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude,” Lambert said, trying for some kind of demure tone that was utterly ridiculous. 

Geralt stared at him a moment, then at Eskel who was just.. watching like he knew something Geralt didn't. “What the fuck are you two on about?” he finally demanded.

“You're saying that you and the bardling didn't--” Eskel stopped, and made an expression that might have been.. a seizure of some kind, Geralt had no idea. 

“He had such a pretty song about you,” Lambert said. “And you're telling us you didn't trip him into bed.” 

What the absolute fuck.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He was going to kill them, then go and find Jaskier and kill him, too. If he'd written _another_ song....

“Are you saying he never sang it for you? The Ballad of the Wolf?” Eskel asked, and despite his relief, Geralt felt like punching something. Maybe Jaskier. 

Maybe he'd just punch Lambert, because Jaskier was young and eager and naïve, and probably couldn't be blamed for being exactly like every other young man who thought..things he oughtn't be thinking.

“I heard it. He wrote it in the evenings when we were traveling together the first summer.”

It was a bit flowery and over the top and exactly what one would expect from a young man head over heels with something he didn't truly understand and thought the world and everything in it could be turned into poetry. He'd made Geralt into some kind of romantic hero, saving fair maidens and children and puppies, and Geralt had considered paying him not to sing it, ever.

It was fucking embarrassing, and while he didn't much mind when the innkeepers smiled and said of course there's a room available and aldermen just handed over his payment without arguing, none of it was worth what his brothers were apparently going to put him through, now.

Geralt knew he was probably...mostly..lying, just a bit. It had been nice – this past summer had been one of the nicest he'd ever had, with people actually smiling at him, people being grateful, Jaskier at his side – Jaskier who could apparently only ever see the good in the world and not the shit Geralt had to contend with day in and day out.

Who saw the good, despite the fact he _saw_ the shit Geralt had to deal with, following him – against Geralt's firm demands otherwise – and watching him hunt down and kill monsters, who saw how people treated him when he walked into town, when he'd saved them from whatever they'd demanded he kill and still they showed no gratitude.

And Jaskier saw all of that and he turned it into pretty words and lyrical music and smiled at him and stayed at his side anyway.

“Sooner or later he's going to get himself killed if he keeps following me,” Geralt muttered, and he stole the bottle from Eskel's grip.

“Well maybe he'll be tired of it come next year,” Eskel said, leaving Geralt the bottle and digging another out of his bag.

“Let's hope so,” Geralt agreed, and he shoved away the feeling that.. maybe he didn't really hope so, at all.

“Or send him to me,” Lambert said, and Geralt threw his empty bottle at his brother's head.


End file.
